and his career at Interpol crushed – notwithstanding the fact that the case had never gone to trial – Callanach had left France and made a new start in his father’s home country, Scotland. Jean-Paul had disappeared from his life when Callanach had needed him most, ensuring the stain of potential guilt hadn’t rubbed off on him by association. Since he’d left France, they’d spoken only once about a case, managing polite professionalism but nothing more, the gulf between them unbridged.
‘Still top of your game then, Luc,’ Jean-Paul muttered as he climbed into the driver’s seat of his old Maserati – handed down from his father, as Callanach recalled. Jean-Paul had always found it an excellent way to attract women’s attention. A certain type of woman, anyway. It wasn’t a judgement. In his twenties, Callanach had regarded almost every part of his life as disposable. Women had shifted in and out of his life like a tide. These days the opposite was true. Every decision he made was measured and careful, and he was an expert on consequences.
‘Just luck,’ Callanach replied, pulling a Gauloises cigarette from the pouch in his pocket and dragging on it, unlit, tasting bonfires and sunsets, and a thousand different red wines. He didn’t bother lighting it. Smoking, like so many other pleasures, was one he had to forego these days. His move from France to Scotland had prompted a number of changes. Giving up smoking was the most public one. Away from work, he drank less wine and spent more time at the gym. But the real change since the rape allegation was post-traumatic impotence. That one was proving much harder to come to terms with.
‘It was never luck with you,’ Jean-Paul said, pulling away roughly from the kerb. ‘You were always in the right place at the right time. You always overheard exactly the phrase we needed for all the pieces to fall into place. I often wondered if moving to Scotland had changed you. Apparently not.’
Callanach stared at his former friend’s face as he drove. His chin had slackened and there was grey showing prematurely in his muddy blond hair. Jean-Paul had aged considerably since they’d last seen one another, his mid-thirties proving unkind.
‘Let’s not do this,’ Callanach said.
‘Do what?’ Jean-Paul laughed. ‘Be honest with each other? Be real? You’ve barely said a word to me since you came back to Interpol. Are we supposed to act like we don’t know one another – all polite bullshit and small talk? Screw that.’
‘What is it you’re angry about, Jean-Paul?’ Callanach asked, winding down the window and letting the weak sun warm his arm.
Jean-Paul laughed, but his face was all bitter after-taste. ‘You think I’m angry? Jesus, Luc, are you ever going to forgive me for what happened? Astrid Borde is dead. You watched her die. I know you went through some bad shit, but the woman who accused you of rape is gone. It’s time to move on.’
‘I have,’ Callanach said quietly.
‘Like fuck you have. You know what? I messed up. I didn’t know what to do when Astrid accused you, but I’ve said sorry. Do you think I haven’t spent the last couple of years regretting what happened?’
‘Jean-Paul, Astrid Borde played me, and you, even my mother. She was smart, devious, and the evidence she set me up with was overwhelming. Was I angry that you seemed to dump me? Damned right I was, for a long time too. But hindsight’s no bad thing. If a woman you’d been out on a date with turned up with bruises, scratches, internal injuries for fuck’s sake, and you’d lied about what had happened on your date, I’d have done exactly what you did. It’s important to believe victims, even when the accused is a friend. You did the right thing. I’m not angry with you. I’m just sick of thinking about it – of it being a part of my life. That’s why I left Lyon and Interpol, only now I’ve been sent back. It wasn’t my choice. I’m not trying to punish you. This just isn’t where I want to be.’
‘So you just what … rose above it all?’ Slamming a foot on the brake pedal, Jean-Paul pulled the car roughly in towards the pavement. ‘You’ve decided to forgive me? I guess you expect me to thank you for that. God, you’re unbelievable. Do you ever fuck up? It took about ten minutes after you were back at Interpol to have every woman in the place fawning over you. Did you know they’ve found photos of you on the internet from when you were modelling? And the false rape allegation has just made you even more of a hero. All you went through, and you’ve come back stronger than ever, and now twice as magnanimous. Do you need to sleep or are you actually superhuman?’
Callanach knew what women thought of him. His looks were as much a curse as a blessing. Dark hair that curled as soon as it grew more than a couple of centimetres, olive skin that tanned with the slightest hint of sunshine, and a smile that could persuade women to do almost anything he wanted. Not that he wanted anything from women any more.
‘What’s going on with you? You were never like this, Jean-Paul. As for the way I’m being treated within Interpol, I haven’t noticed anyone paying me any attention. A lot of the faces have changed from a couple of years ago. I just want to be left alone to get on with my job. I didn’t ask to be partnered with you on this.’
‘No, you didn’t. I asked to head up the investigation when I realised you were being assigned to it as Scottish liaison officer. I thought that maybe we could reconnect, put the past behind us. I don’t know what I was expecting, Luc. Anger maybe, some bitterness. I was hoping I could help you through the transition to living in France again …’
‘I’m not living in France again,’ Callanach said. ‘I’m visiting.’
‘You’re not visiting. It’s as if you’re not here at all. I knew you better than anyone, but I don’t know the man you’ve turned into. It’s like you’re a ghost. You don’t talk to anyone. You sit silently in meetings. You work, go to the gym and disappear off to wherever you’re staying. If you want to punish all your old friends then go ahead, but did you ever stop to think that we suffered too?’
‘How you suffered? Is that a joke?’
‘Yeah, that’s right. It was hilarious being the best friend of the guy awaiting trial on a rape charge. No one knew what to say to me. Half the squad stopped talking to me altogether. Astrid told everyone that I’d introduced you to her, and made it sound as if I set the whole situation up. And you just disappeared. You wouldn’t take any calls, you refused visitors …’
‘You were a potential witness. My lawyer told me not to see you under any circumstances.’
‘Luc, I was your best friend. You didn’t rape that woman any more than I did, and I knew it. You just never gave me a chance to say those words to you,’ Jean-Paul shouted.
‘You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have been more thoughtful when I was facing the prospect of spending fifteen years behind bars, then living with the label of sex offender and doing casual labour because my career had been stolen from me. It was a lot to deal with,’ Callanach replied quietly.
‘Even now you can’t see it from anyone’s perspective but your own, can you?’
Callanach stared at him, arms folded, one side of his mouth twisted up, half smile, half grimace. ‘Well, now you’ve said everything you wanted to. I’ve heard your side of the story. And I’m not superhuman, I’m just doing my job. As for women paying me attention, I think you’re a lot more interested in that than I am. Maybe you need to figure out why that is. You always did hate the way women reacted to me. At least you’re finally being honest about it. But I’m here to work, and that’s all. I want to find Malcolm Reilly’s killer, close down this human trafficking case and go home. No drama, no conflict, no amateur psychotherapy, and – in the unlikely event
